The American government owes just shy of $3.5 trillion to foreign governments, corporations and individuals. The lion’s share of this is owned to China and Japan, which own 22.8% and 21.5% of U.S. debt owed to foreign parties. See who owns the rest after jump.
Chinese agriculture stocks, as measured by Tickerspy’s Chinese Agriculture Stocks Index (*CHAGR), are up over 6% today. Gains in Chinese agriculture stock were led by crop seed company Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ: SEED), which rose nearly 10% to $13.44. Gains were also driven by AgFeed Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: FEED) and China Agritech Inc. (NASDAQ: CAGC), which rose 8.1% and 8.9% respectively.
Chinese auto part stocks, as measured by Tickerspy’s Chinse Auto Parts Stocks Index (*CHATP), are are up nearly 7% today. Gains were led by China Automotive Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CAAS), a company which primarily manufactures steering columns for cars. The stock is up over 12% today, breaking its 52-week high and trading over three times is average volume. The company has received a big boost from recent news that Chinese auto exports posted their first year over year gain in 15 months.
Garrett W. McIntyre
Markets in Asia were mixed.
The Nikkei .9% to 10,177. Mitshbishi UFJ (NYSE:MTU) rose.
The Hang Seng dropped 1.2% to 21,564. Bank of China (NASDAQ:CHINA) fell.
The Shanghai Composite was down .6% to 3,255.
At the open in Europe, the FTSE was up .1% to 5,289. The Dax rose .1% to 5,877. The CAC 40 was up .1% to 3,838.
Data from Reuters and MarketWatch.
Douglas A. McIntyre
The U.S. trade deficit decreased $2.7 billion $32.9 billion in October as a result of exports growing more than imports. Exports grew $3.4 billion while imports grew $745 million. Gains in exports were led by increases in autos, aircraft, industrial machinery, and farm products. Much of the decline in imports reflects a decline in the price of oil. Exports of goods and services were worth $136.8 billion, the highest level since November 2008, which was 141.5 billion. Also, the United States exported a record $6.5 billion to China. The United States imported $29.5 billion worth of goods from China in October.
These are some of the top pre-market analyst upgrades we have seen early this Friday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
January 16, 2009
Rock star Bono must be a lot less well off financially than he was two years ago. He must also wish he never met Roger McNamee, who runs private equity firm Elevation Partners where Bono is one of the five professionals who run the firm. Hard to say whether he really spends any time on the job.
Tata Motos (TTM) Concern about company taking on financial obligationt to buy Jaguar and Rover. Falls to $13.62 from 52-week high of $21.30.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Bank cannot sell its insurance unit. Sells off to $4.55 from 52-week high of $11.50.
Favrille (FVRL) Lays off most of staff after failure of drug trial. Hits bottom at $.08 from 52-week high of $4.08.
Zvue Corp (ZVUE) Keeps dropping after bad quarter. Down to $.24 from 52-week high of $3.70.
Douglas A. McIntyre
These are ten of the analyst calls we are focusing on this Thursday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
May 22, 2008
These are not all of the calls affecting stocks, but these are the top analyst calls that 247WallSt.com is looking at this Thursday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
February 28, 2008
China Railway Construction Corp. announced that it intends to price its initial public offering at the high end of its range. At a price of 9.08 yuan ($1.27), the offering is valued at roughly $3.6 Billion for a Shanghai offering of 2.8 billion shares. It also plans to offer an additional 1.706 shares to trade in Hong Kong to be priced on March 6. Last week, we discussed the offering and mentioned that it could top the IPO of rival China Railway Group of $2.5 Billion in Hong Kong in late November 2007.
Many investors view this IPO as attractive due to the lack of competition in this market, strong earnings and the fact that the Chinese government allocated $175 Billion for railroad investment over the next five years. Trading on Shanghai is anticipated for March 10 and the Hong Kong listing is set for March 13.
Rachel Lopez
February 27, 2008
China Railway Construction Corp., the second largest Chinese railroad builder, intends to raise $3.6 billion from its IPO offering in Shanghai. Reuters has reported that the state-run company will offer some 2.8 billion A shares for 8.00 to 9.08 Yuan per share. If share prices reach the high end of the range, then this IPO will top size of the IPO of its larger competitor, China Railway Group.
It also appears that a public offering in Hong Kong will follow the Shanghai offering although the specific price range for the 1.706 shares has not been determined and will be limited to select foreign investors. The listing on Shanghai is anticipated for March 10 and the Hong Kong listing is set for March 13.
In China’s most recent 5 year plan, they allocated $175 billion for investment in railroad infrastructure to alleviate bottlenecks in the booming economy.
Rachel Lopez
February 22, 2008
Shares of Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS) are trading up 8% today after capitulating to activist investor MMI Investments, LLP, which is one of the largest shareholders of Unisys. Unisys has delayed its annual meeting to July 24 to allow it more time to "explore certain portfolio rationalization and other actions that may enhance shareholder value" with its investment banker Bear Stearns.
If this sounds familiar at 247WallSt.com, it is because this was listed as one of "turnarounds that hasn’t turned around" recently. In the we noted: "When you backdate the news and look at the history of the company you’d think that the turn may have already started. But shares are barely above 52-week lows and are barely off of multi-year lows too."
MMI was one of the reasons we named Brinks (NYSE: BCO) to our Special Situations newsletter, and is also part of the reason we have not wanted to close out that position to lock in would-be profits. You can look at their last proxy filing to see how involved MMI can get.
MMI sent a shareholder letter in early January to urge its review of alternatives, and part of that encouragement included its government services business. We are not actually under the belief that a mega-premium buyout is in the cards for Unisys. We are not overly encouraged by an already-leveraged balance sheet that is too heavy in goodwill and intangible assets. But we do believe that the company can continue to make cuts as needed and can streamline certain operations that are not contributing to the bottom line. The company is still underperforming compared to analyst estimates, but it has at least come back to ‘quarterly profitability’ and that is at least a start.
Those of you who trade turnarounds will want to keep this one on your watch lists. It may be a long slow road, but it looks like the car is at least out of the shop even if it isn’t on the road yet.
Jon C. Ogg
February 19, 2008
These are not the only analyst calls today, but these are the top ten analyst calls that 247WallSt.com is looking at in early pre-market trading:
Jon C. Ogg
February 19, 2008
On Tuesday, we’ll get to see earnings out of Bankrate Inc. (NASDAQ:RATE). The estimates from First Call for the internet-based consumer banking company are $0.39 EPS on $26.84 million in revenues. Estimates for fiscal 2008 are $1.96 EPS on $142.76 million in revenues.
Analysts have an average price target north of $56.00, which is right in line with current share prices. If Friday’s closing prices are any indicator and if the earnings were coming out immediately, it appears that options traders would be pricing in a move of up to $4.00 in either direction.
It will be interesting to see if the company even mentions the new competition coming soon from TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM) as it pursues its new MainStreet.com push in 2008. We still think it was wiser for the company to partner with Move.com (NASDAQ: MOVE) like it did rather than to acquire it, and this will be the first quarter to reflect any of those efforts.
Bankrate’s 52-week trading range is $32.70 to $56.04 and this one has been doing incredibly well considering its market. In fact, Friday was yet another 52-week high.
Jon C. Ogg
February 3, 2008
Shares of Brinks Co. (NYSE: BCO) are up significantly after today earnings report. We have been behind Brinks for several months now, and it is still an active stock on our Special Situation subscriber letter. This has approached our own $70 price target before the market malaise took it lower. It actually never even did hit our downside panic levels, but we have a hedged scenario anyhow.
This morning Brinks managed to beat earnings quite handily. Brinks posted earnings at $1.16 EPS, well above the $0.74 estimate from First Call; revenues were up more than 18% to $882.8 million, yet First Call only had estimates at $819.5 million.
Furthermore the company put 2008 goals for organic growth of high-single digits for revenues with operating profit margins at or above 8%. Not only that, but Brinks is looking further out to 2010 with a goal of sustaining that rate of revenue growth and boosting its operating margins to 10%.
Our Special Situation thrust here was only partially based upon improving results, although we did expect a turn there again. We have been tracking increased activist investor activity and after we reviewed the books, the business stance, its minor units that could be parceled out, and other factors, we determined that this stock could reach roughly $70.00. Our entry area was in the mid-$50’s in September 2007, and we didn’t want to note the profits by taking them too soon in the mid-$60’s by early November.
As always, we laid out an options trade that allowed for hedging the transaction to minimize risk. This is crucial for many turnarounds and for many businesses that have special situations they are working through. In short, it’s important to have protection when management may intentionally or inadvertently take actions that result in negative shareholder value.
Jon C. Ogg
January 31, 2008
CDC Corp (CHINA) Ugly earnings. Falls to $4.15 from 52-week high of $11.45.
Finisar ((FNSR) No recent news. Fiber optic equipment maker falls to $1.38 from 52-week high of $4.21.
Conexant (CNXT) Second day of sell-off. Down to $.92 from 52-week high of $2.20
Retail Ventures (RVI) Bad quarter. Sells off to $4.15 from 52-week high of $23.30.
Quiksilver (ZQK) Apparel company drops outlook. Drops to $8.87 from 52-week high of $16.08.
Black & Decker (BDK) Housing hurts financial results. Down to $71.95 from 52-week high of $97.01.
Marriott (MAR) Travel stocks continue to sell off. Down to $31.34 from 52-week high of $52.
Starwood Hotels (HOT) Ditto. Weekly hotel room revenue numbers weak. Drops to $46.22 from 52-week high of $75.45.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Chinese stocks this week have gone bonkers, in most cases to the point that goes beyond sensible. When stocks rise exponentially and with a major wave you always have to back over the reasoning with a fine tooth comb.
We just saw Xinhua Finance Media Limited (NASDAQ:XFML) make a mystery run of 6% before giving back some gains, and no doubt it was the China Syndrome helped it. This company is one we’ve covered on and off and it is up roughly 80% from its post-IPO lows. The stock was punished severely shortly after coming public due to lurking issues that weren’t properly disclosed ahead of the IPO. It’s too bad that this turned into a busted IPO so fast, because the company may have alienated many investors who would have otherwise been quite interested.
Xinhua actually has a lot going for it. It brought in more outside independence after Yucaipa bought shares from selling shareholders into a lock-up expiration. It has actually been able to stage a defense after much negative outside media coverage (imagine news agencies bashing each other). The company has been making deals and now is much more than just a "Chinese Finance Media Company." It has too many distribution partners and now research to mention in a quick article.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced more toy recalls today for lead paint violations. There is a full list of product recalls here, but interestingly enough this may actually have an impact on more of the companies than just the ones noted herein.
Because these recalls announced today are "Winnie the Pooh" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" it could technically have an impact on Disney’s physical toy and physical merchandise. It doesn’t mention the company and Disney has many outside arrangements, but guess who has the trademarks.
We will be the first ones to point out the actual numbers of product recalls are small in the grand scheme of things, but there are many parents and consumer activists (as well as free trade activists/foes) that are watching this like a hawk. There are also no known incidents of note. We only included the ‘lead paint recall items’ in this.
Public companies: Energizer (NYSE:ENR) and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS). Below is a brief summary of the product recalls announced today:
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